UEFA looking to introduce salary cap to replace Financial Fair Play

UEFA will soon lay out proposals to replace their current Financial Fair Play system by introducing a salary cap and a luxury tax.

FFP rules, which were first introduced in 2010, demand that teams break even over a three-year period in an attempt to stop teams from recklessly spending, although the regulations have come under fire in recent years.

According to The Times, UEFA are open to the idea of completely overhauling the system by introducing a salary cap, similar to those seen in the United States in Major League Baseball and the NBA.

Just how that salary cap would be decided is up for debate. The European Commission is keen on basing the cap on a percentage of revenue, although there is also an idea of using one salary cap at a very high level for all teams.

Teams would be given the freedom to exceed that salary cap, but only if they are prepared to pay an extra luxury tax, which could see them pay nearly double the amount of their breach into a fund which would then be distributed to other teams in their competition.

Repeat offenders could even be threatened with bans from European competitions, with UEFA keen to do more to prevent mass overspending.

The plans, which will be unveiled at a convention on the future of European football next month, are hoped to be fairer and more transparent than current FFP rules, which have left many owners, player and fans scratching their heads at how the system works.

Paris Saint-Germain are often used as examples of the confusion surrounding FFP. The French side have just handed out astronomical wages to Gianluigi Donnarumma, Sergio Ramos, Georginio Wijnaldum and Lionel Messi in the same summer in which Barcelona were physically incapable of registering the latter because of the rules.

Discussions will be held with representatives from each UEFA nation to work out a way to implement the system, as well as other potential methods to improve the monitoring of finances.